With the surging crisis on the U.S. southern border, there is an increased emphasis on the threats posed by Mexican drug cartels. But most contemporary analysis of the cartels does not include the profound changes that have taken place in Mexico since NAFTA, transforming the Mexican cartels from top-down command and control structures to more complex, adaptive systems that are no longer structured around "kingpins" but are horizontally-aligned networks that are increasingly controlling more territory.

For Episode 24 of the Border Wars Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera who is a professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and among the foremost experts on the Mexican cartels and the US-Mexico border. Dr. Correa-Cabrera has published several b ...